Integrated electro-optic digital-to-analog link for efficient computing and arbitrary waveform generation

Area of Science:

• Integrated photonics
• Nanophotonics
• Analog computing

Background:

• Rapid advancements in AI and communication systems require enhanced computational power and signaling.
• Integrated photonics offers a promising analog processing alternative to digital electronics.
• An efficient interface between digital electronics and analog photonics is crucial for next-generation hardware.

Purpose of the Study:

• To address the bottleneck of efficient interface design in analog photonic systems.
• To demonstrate a general electro-optic digital-to-analog link (EO-DiAL).
• To showcase the potential of integrated photonics for advanced computing and communication.

Main Methods:

• Utilized foundry-based lithium niobate nanophotonics.
• Developed a general electro-optic digital-to-analog link (EO-DiAL).
• Employed purely digital inputs for waveform generation.

Main Results:

• Achieved on-demand generation of optical and electronic waveforms at rates up to 186 Gbit/s.
• Demonstrated high-fidelity MNIST encoding with low energy consumption (0.058 pJ/bit) for photonic computing.
• Enabled pulse-shaping-free microwave arbitrary waveform generation with tunable delay and gain.

Conclusions:

• The developed EO-DiAL provides an efficient digital-to-analog conversion paradigm using integrated photonics.
• Analog photonic hardware holds transformative potential for computing, optical interconnects, and high-speed ranging.
• This work paves the way for compact and efficient next-generation communication and computing systems.